Caste aside your differences...

...for this is a democracy, whose cornerstones have been liberty and equality.

It is a bit appaling how these two concepts get mixed up so easily in Indian politics (link)

The argument goes like this...
There was a set of people who were once discriminated against and their liberties were taken away. So, we will arbitrarily decide that a subset of people, which might or might not correspond to the people discriminated against be specifically allotted educational seats with no credence to merit.

It started with 10% reservations for the most discriminated against - the so called 'scheduled castes and tribes', which might have been fair, had it been properly implemented. Instead, in order to cover their own excesses, governments in power, one after the other have raised the quota in this bizzare human experiment, stirring up shit, and then standing back and watching the thing explode.

And now the problem has deviated... instead of helping the discrimnated, it is slowly becoming a tool for the most populous and vocal people, the other so-called backward classes chewing paans in white mercedes guided with a hand studded with 5 rings, to discriminate against everyone else. After all, who cares about the poor cobbler in the village surviving on five rupees per day?